Here is some stimulus
Our tax dollars at work -- from
FOX News:
Federal Stimulus Funds for Nevada's Green-Industry Grows Trees, But Few Jobs
A federal stimulus grant of nearly $500,000 to grow trees and stimulate the economy in Nevada yielded a whopping 1.72 jobs, according to government statistics.
In 2009, the U.S. Forest Service awarded $490,000 of stimulus money to Nevada's Clark County Urban Forestry Revitalization Project, aimed at revitalizing urban neighborhoods in the county with trees, plants, and green-industry training.
According to Recovery.gov, the U.S. government's official website related to Recovery Act spending, the project created 1.72 permanent jobs. In addition, the Nevada state Division of Forestry reported the federal grant generated one full-time temporary job and 11 short-term project-oriented jobs.
It also resulted in the planting of hundreds of trees -- which critics say is about the only good thing that came out of this stimulus project.
And of course, the spin machine gets ratcheted up:
"If the question is �was this a job-creating project?� the answer is 'no, it wasn't,'" said Bob Conrad, public information officer for the Nevada Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. "It was one of a number of projects that we do believe helped improve natural resources in the state."
Conrad said the $490,000 is being used for a number of projects. Those projects include tree inventories, salaries for staff at the nurseries through the Nevada Division of Forestry, plant material and plant supplies.
"The goal obviously was to make trees available to local government entities, parks, schools, things like that, at our state nursery," said Conrad. "We basically grew and provided about 2,000 trees to these local entities."
The grant also funds Spanish-language training for Hispanics in the landscaping and tree care industry to "develop employability skills and increase job retention."
Gee -- $490K stimulus / 2,000 trees = $245 per each tree. The salaries should have been paid from the revenues generated by the tree sales and WTF teaching the class in Spanish -- these people would be better served by giving them an English as Second Language class -- talk about job retention. If I had two potential employees, one who could at least get by in English and one who only spoke Spanish, guess who I would hire. Not discrimination, just basic business communication.
Posted by DaveH at August 24, 2011 11:36 AM